As an employee, the Roth 401k is of little benefit to me at the moment due to my tax situation. However, it's existence means that in retirement I'll be able to convert funds into a Roth without first moving them to an IRA, which is a plus. So the employees who'll benefit may be a larger group than ...

All of mine are individual bonds with long dates. I still think inflation's inevitable and so they're a cheap hedge. I did refuse to buy them at negative yields, though. At present I'm no longer adding to my position until I have more space in tax deferred and the real yields are more attractive.

How do I change font size? I'm on an iPad as I write this, and the font size is a bit large, but on the home page it is unusable it's so large. Try holding the Apple key and - (Minus). Apple+ makes it larger if you go too far. Unless I'm missing it, there are no Apple (or Control) keys on the iPad ...

I'll check out the choices when I'm home and have access to the pad. Something definitely changed in the last week or two. I used to read the forum in landscape mode, and there were a lot more rows shown than I seem to see now. This is when looking at the board index or at a listing of topics within...

I still seem to have a problem. I use an iPad and on my device the forum pages suddenly look super sized, even though the font looks like a scaled up version of the one I think it's always used. Things seem to be 1.5 spaced as well. It's not easy to selectively clear the cache on the pad - you get a...

My sister is a retired teacher and she may earn some modest amounts of money working as a substitute teacher. What limits apply to IRA contributions in this situation? As an example, supposed she earns $10,000.00, can she still contribute $5,500.00 + $1,000.00 to an IRA, or is there some lower limit...

You see them everywhere here in Silicon Valley. Someone told me it's the #1 seller in Atherton (a well-heeled mid-peninsula suburb). No question the cars are sexy as hell, and incredible to drive (so I'm told) with amazing acceleration. My thoughts for what they're worth: 1. Having owned an electric...

When mine failed, it was still readable, just not writable. Unfortunately Windows insists on trying to write something to it whenever it's mounted. Fortunately Linux does not, so I was able to copy it off without losing anything.

Wiring - it's hard to retrofit if you leave something out so get those cable runs everywhere you might conceivably want them, and make sure you have high-speed Ethernet wiring with a central closet or similar into which you can bring your broadband.

In early retirement, my ACA insurance has been better than excellent. The coverage is wonderful; networks are complete. Customer service is professional, friendly and helpful. My current ACA is superior to the both Cadillac plan I had as a corporate employee and the deluxe plan I later had as a pub...

My sister recently retired after teaching for 30 years. I help prepare her tax return with TurboTax and 2015 is going to be a significant change from prior years. Question 1: are health insurance premiums deductible? Now that she's retired, she pays the county out of her modest pension to continue i...

If you received a message from yourself from the future, would you actually act on it?? I don't think I would. I would include a component that would ensure it came from me. It's not in my message but 140 characters is more than enough to append it. Since the only possible sender is me, and my past...

In a capitalist society, a disproportional share of the GDP goes to the capital owners. Search forum for previous discussions on this. I think you are on the wrong track here. What you say may be correct, but you'll see evidence of that in the ratio of corporate profits to GDP, currently at record ...

This is good news and I'm happy to hear it. I'm sure John C. Bogle will be pleased so, as he's made his views plain on many occasions--was this in The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism ? Any step in this direction, even symbolic, will have a salutory effect. Vanguard has claimed that they have, in ...

My last problem is a 1099-MISC I recieved for a promotional reward. I enter this in TT and lo and behold it insists on reporting this on schedule C as business or self employment income. Ugh. I've tried a few different variants but it seems TT is hard wired to treat all 1099-MISC income as schedule ...

Sounds like the $25 is likely the comission you paid - should show up in the transaction statement. Cashless stock option sales usually end up as a loss on schedule D for the amount of the commission (what you made is already included as part of you income on your w2 - but the commission deduction ...

Sounds like the $25 is likely the comission you paid - should show up in the transaction statement. Cashless stock option sales usually end up as a loss on schedule D for the amount of the commission (what you made is already included as part of you income on your w2 - but the commission deduction ...

I think I clicked an "ESPP" checkbox then a box that said something like "manually enter the data (I have all the data)" or something to that effect. Deleted the transations and re-entered them, this time using step-by-step. I dug out form 3922 from two years to get the bits and...

When you are done - Column “e” on form 8949 will have the adjusted amount from your 1099-B which is likely to be a larger cost basis. Thanks, I'll check this but I think this is where it's gone wrong. To do this in turbotax “Step-by-Step” mode you can click the checkbox “Add More Details” under eac...

Initially, I took the path where I said I had all the info and would enter manually. It didn't end well. I had better luck when I followed the TT recommendation to walk me through it. I then gave it all the "variables" it asked for and it calculated the compensation and gain/loss, which I...

How would I know if the ESPP ordinary income was included in my w2? I've never really understood this, so it is possible I have been double counting income this whole time. On my W2, I see a line item in one of the boxes that has a figure exactly the same as the compensation element calculated by h...

I never use the ESPP feature of TT. I just treat it as a normal stock sale. I sell ESPP shares immediately; therefore, I don't have to think about the tax rules for qualified dispositions. I enter the 1099-B with the incorrect cost basis. I then put in an adjusted basis, so I don't get double taxed...

I'm trying to enter an ESPP sale without being double-taxed on the compensation element. This is the portion of the gain that is taxed as ordinary income, and that's already been reported on my W2. If I enter the transaction as an ordinary stock sale and use the adjusted (higher) cost basis (helpful...

The only risk I care about is not having enough money to sustain my retirement. All other risk measures -- for instance, standard deviation and drawdowns -- are helpful to get a good sense of how a portfolio fits together, but they aren't my direct measure of risk. I view risk with a time horizon o...

I don't see how Facebook's existence detracts from GM's business, so I don't get the point of the comparison. These are new products and services. Sure, the number of people employed is small, but those folks wouldn't be building cars even if Facebook didn't exist, and of course anyone can share in ...

Are they selling bonds before maturity as a matter of policy? Yes. And this is a good thing. I don't want my Intermediate Treasury fund to hold Treasuries below 3 years with yields (not coupons) below 1% when I have 1% savings accounts available. In a rising rate environment such a policy gives me ...

I always wonder about the internals of funds. Are they selling bonds before maturity as a matter of policy? Am I going to get unexpected cap gains distributions that I didn't really benefit from if older shareholders sell out? Etc.

I think even the AMT is now indexed to inflation because it began hitting the middle class, for whom it was not intended. Not quite true. The exemption is indexed, but the brackets aren't, including the phaseouts. So the AMT will also slowly get worse if you live in a state with a high income tax -...

They provide income that seems a bit steadier than being forced to sell securities with attendant tax consequences. Dividends don't have tax consequences? Dividends are not involuntary taxable events, historically generally at higher rates than capital gains? L. I was thinking about being forced to...

They provide income that seems a bit steadier than being forced to sell securities with attendant tax consequences. They make shares at least partially self-liquidating, making rebalancing a tad easier since on average the stock side is more likely to be the side you balance away from. They let me d...

Answer: Balvenie I came here for solace. I took a hard look at custodians for my assets and moved out of some of them. I sold off some individual munis where I began to doubt the credit quality. I used the crash to realize tax losses while exchanging a grab bag of ETFs for just two Vanguard funds, g...

Once you include the effects of inflation it might be quite difficult to grow a nest egg in real terms, unless your expenses are a smallish fraction of the yield. Throw in taxes and it gets harder still. Throw in some bonds and it's harder still.

The SIPC is a private insurer. I personally do take the possibility of a brokerage failure quite seriously. After the MF Global failure, even more so. During the financial crisis I bailed out of my previous broker, a large and well known institution, in 2007' because I'd become concerned about its e...

It is about time that investors who buy money market securities through mutual funds bear the risk of those securities. Ron Sure - just let individuals and companies have accounts at the Fed to hold their cash, and I'll agree. Until then, can't agree with this thinking. You might just as easily say...

Who has money in money markets anymore? Alas, me. Two of my accounts can't be swept to an FDIC account for reasons I don't understand. Schwab's default sweep is to an MM accounts though I can freely move cash to/from a linked checking account. But this means I'm exposed to MM fluctuations, should t...

What if Medtronic was bought by a larger US company? Wouldn't the shareholders still have to pay capital gains tax on the acquisition price? Yes. So why doesn't the New York Times feel that mutual fund shareholders are "paying the price" when a domestic company acquired another one? I sus...

If you could be a general partner. You almost can by buying publicly traded alternative asset management companies. You can own shares of KKR & CO L.P, which is the GP in KKR's private equity funds. GPs might have liability exposure that LPs do not. And the carried interest rules aren't some ma...

As far as missing the returns from intermediate term bonds...big deal! The returns I missed are not enough to get excited about. Amen. The paltry returns don't seem adequate for the risk undertaken - you could wait years at these rates to recover from an 8% drop, should one occur. But congrats to t...